


a breath to notice

by finkpishnets



Category: Penny Dreadful (TV)
Genre: F/M, Friendship, Gen, Post-Season/Series 01
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-20
Updated: 2014-12-20
Packaged: 2018-03-02 08:26:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,877
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2806016
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/finkpishnets/pseuds/finkpishnets
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They’re bound in blood, and God knows that’s a dangerous thing to be.</p>
            </blockquote>





	a breath to notice

**Author's Note:**

  * For [M_Leigh](https://archiveofourown.org/users/M_Leigh/gifts).



> Happy Holidays, dear recipient! I would have loved to have been able to write you the long, epic story of Ethan & Vanessa's blooming friendship, but since I suck at writing anything of length ever, I hope this will at least be a little something to make the season a tiny bit brighter. ♥

  
“I think our good doctor is rather taken with you,” Vanessa says, tilting her head as they watch Frankenstein flit across Sir Malcolm’s study, stopping every few seconds to pick something up and put it down again. It’s plain he hasn’t been sleeping, and Ethan wonders if he’s running short of the poison he pumps through his veins.

He hums instead of answering, and Vanessa barks a laugh and doesn’t make him agree.

“He’s taken with all of us,” Ethan says instead, and that’s true at least. For all the death and terror that’s been chasing their heels since their paths crossed, Frankenstein still seems constantly surprised that he both desires the company of others and that his own presence is equally sought after.

He _has_ been focusing more of that attention on Ethan as of late, but there’s a sad, desperate quality about it that rings of unspoken goodbyes and crimson stains and long hair brushing soft skin, all things Ethan refuses to let himself think about.

“Shall we leave him to his work?” Vanessa asks when the silence drags between them, and Ethan is glad for the excuse, following her into the drawing room he’s come to think of as _hers_ and not questioning it as she takes her tarot cards from the desk drawer. She doesn’t ask him for his input and he’s glad, even if he’s been exposed to things a lot stranger over the course of their acquaintance. 

He doesn’t much want to reflect on the past or the future, not when he’s barely managing to cling to the present, and he thinks she knows that, though he’s never said the words aloud. He hasn’t said much of _anything_ , to be honest, at least nothing of import, and he knows plenty of people that would call that unhealthy, but Miss Ives is definitely not one of them.

When Sir Malcolm and the doctor come to find them an hour later, they’ve barely exchanged more than half a dozen words. 

It’s the closest to normal Ethan’s felt since--

_Since._

 

****

**+**

  
  
“Are we avoiding him?” Vanessa asks, and Ethan knows the question’s only mostly serious. “It’ll be a difficult task if we are, I’m afraid; party season has just begun, and you know how the rich and beautiful love a soiree.”

“We’re not avoiding him,” Ethan says, then shakes his head. “ _I’m_ not avoiding him - obviously your choices are your own - I just have nothin’ much to say to Mister Gray right now.”

“Did you ever?” Vanessa asks, and Ethan can’t tell if she’s being playful or cruel. Both, probably. 

He rolls his eyes and resists the urge to cross his arms over his chest. The new jacket Miss Ives had insisted on buying him for the occasion is heavy across his shoulders, and guessing the amount it had set her back, he’s loathe to do anything that might cause it to lose the pressed form he currently shares with every gentleman in the room.

“Stop looking so uncomfortable,” Vanessa says, staring out across the crowd rather than at him. “Even the barest hint of weakness and the vultures will swoop in.”

“I thought these were your friends?” Ethan says, trying not to laugh.

A smile tugs at the corners of Vanessa’s mouth. “Not at all. The upper class very rarely have friends, just competitors, and I certainly don’t care enough to have those.”

“You don’t have any friends?” Ethan says, and he sounds surprised though he’s not, not really. It’s not like he has too many himself, not these days, not in a long time.

Vanessa’s silent for a moment. “I suppose I do, of a sort,” she says eventually. “Now, anyway.”

He thinks of their merry little band of misfits; of Frankenstein and his childlike passion that isn’t negated by his natural cynicism; of Sir Malcolm and the bond he and Vanessa are slowly building a day at a time; of the silent and all-seeing Sembene. Of he and Vanessa and this connection they’ve had since she sat across from him in a tavern and refused to grace him with her name.

“I’ll take that as a compliment, Miss Ives,” he says, watching Dorian spot them from the doorway.

“Now’s our chance to run, Mister Chandler,” Vanessa says, and he knows she’s seen him too. “Or shall we remember that we have seen many a thing far more frightening than our own attractions and converse in dull, forgettable small talk for a few moments until we all make our polite excuses and go our separate ways for the rest of the evening?”

“When you put it like that--” Ethan laughs. “I suppose we’d best get it out the way.”

Vanessa smiles and shifts her stance as if setting the scene for a showdown, shrinking the space between them so it’s obvious that whatever this is, they’re in it together. “My thoughts exactly,” she says, and Ethan thinks, not for the first of tenth or fiftieth time, that Vanessa Ives is one hell of a woman.

He imagines she knows it, too.

 

****

**+**

  
  
Every part of him hurts, like his skin’s ripping away from his bones a fraction at a time, and he wants to scream, wants to tear the rough, sweat-stained sheets apart with bare fingers and break through the walls around him, but he can do nothing except try and stay utterly still, his breathing shallow and the very feeling of blood pumping through his veins almost too much to stand. 

He’s not sure when she appears, or if she’s even there at all; she doesn’t talk, doesn’t reach out for him, just sits in the rickety chair in the corner of the room and reads. She must have brought the book with her - God knows he doesn’t have much in the way of possessions, doesn’t even have Brona’s anymore to pretend a life - and that speaks of intention in the way a casual visit doesn’t. Occasionally he opens his eyes and sees her staring back with the gaze of someone putting together the pieces of a dark puzzle and finding themselves morbidly glad of the answer, and he wants to scream at her to leave, to let him suffer, but she’s still there the next time he fights his way back from oblivion.

“I’ve made tea,” she says, when he’s finally able to open his eyes and lift his head. “It should be cool enough by now.”

He tries to say _thank you_ but all that comes out is a rasping choke that sounds like death to his own ears.

She comes back with a cup he’s sure belongs in the Murray house and holds it against his lips as he drinks. He wishes it was whisky but he’s had at least two days of withdrawal, he can last a little longer.

When he slips out of consciousness next it’s from exhaustion instead of pain, and when he wakes to the shouts of London’s streets outside cracked windowpanes she’s no longer there.

He thinks maybe he imagined her (though he’s unsure why then it would be her, not-- _not_ …) right up until he sees the cup on the floor beside his bed, last remaining dregs not yet dried to the bottom. 

He wonders if she believes she owes him something (and if they’re counting--) but pity’s the last thing she’d waste her time on, and as much as he knows they’re friends (“of a sort”) they both still keep their secrets close to their chests. All that blood and pain and suffering, and their gravest victims will always be themselves; it’s a torment they both carry - one the others cannot begin to understand, though none of them are anything like innocent - and the very thing, he thinks, that drew them together in the first place.

They’re bound in blood, and God knows that’s a dangerous thing to be.

 

****

**+**

  
  
She never mentions it, just as he never brings up the events that transpired between hell and her demimonde, though he knows both their eyes are sharpened from the experience.

Ethan won’t ask her what lives under her skin, in the shadows of her face, and he knows that she won’t ask him what monsters he’s laying host to when rage becomes blinding and the hunger too strong to bear. 

Maybe that’s smart and maybe it’s fucking stupid, but it’s a relief regardless.

Secrets don’t amount to much when a person can see right through them anyway, and the more time they spend together, the more Ethan knows for sure that there’s never been a secret Miss Vanessa Ives hasn’t already heard in the whispers of her own mind. 

They both know how to play the game like they’re part of the world they slip through more easily than not, and maybe that means idle talk and smiles that will never reach further than their lips, but it’s the closest either of them have to safety.

He supposes they’ve become confidantes in their silence.

It’s odd how liberating that feels. 

 

****

**+**

  
  
She drags him to three more holiday gatherings across the season, and by the fourth he refuses to accept the perfectly tailored outfits she insists on providing; she raises an eyebrow and purses her lips, but he thinks it’s more because he’s _refusing_ her than any newfound desire to impress their hosts. 

“Maybe it’ll cause a scandal,” he says, “my wearing the same tailcoat _twice_.”

“One can only hope, Mister Chandler,” she says, and she’s given up even pretending to be anything but amused. Mere months ago they were chasing unknown creatures through the night, following the trail of bodies in its wake; now Vanessa’s dragging him to high society functions he doesn’t belong at, introducing him as her bodyguard and her chaperone and her good friend, and he supposes he’s all three, but the latter would be his title of choosing.

Tonight they’ll talk and laugh and drink and pretend that the world is a mundane, predictable place, and tomorrow they’ll meet in the haven of Murray’s walls and discuss the rumors that are spreading through London like wildfire - dark and horrifying things afoot once more - and that shouldn’t be his consolation for dressing up and playing nice, but he’s as macabre as the rest of them, so of course it is.

“You needn’t look like I’m leading you to your own funeral,” Vanessa says, even as her unimpressed gaze draws over the outside world. “You don’t have to come. I’m sure I could persuade the doctor…”

The thought of her _not_ taking him along is almost as bad as going, so he shakes his head and offers his arm and morbidly hopes that whatever evil’s lurking the city will keep them occupied for many a night to come.

When Vanessa looks up and him, he’s once again struck with the impression that she knows _exactly_ what he’s thinking. At this point, he wouldn’t be surprised.

“We should hurry,” he says, drawing his coat closer against him to ward off the cold. “The streets are dangerous at the best of times.”

“Oh, I don’t know, Mister Chandler,” Vanessa says, knowing smile flitting into life. “I rather think there’s very little more dangerous than the both of us.”

And-- Well.

He’s inclined to agree.


End file.
